Six Questions: Wenda Harris Millard

Wenda has been my client, collaborator and friend for nearly 20 years, and is one of the most connected and influential people in the world of digital media, marketing and technology. As President and COO of MediaLink, she advises scores of companies on the nuance and power balance in today’s landscape. On Tuesday March 4th, she’ll be our keynote interview at The Upstream Seller Forum in New York.

Doug Weaver: Last year during interactive week you were one of the first industry leaders I heard use the word “fraud.” How big a problem is this and what can ad sellers and publishers do about it?

Wenda Harris Millard: Fraud is one of the most serious issues facing digital media and marketing today. It takes many forms – content theft, suspicious activity, clutter (ad collisions), non-viewable inventory and inappropriate content like hate speech and porn. In all its forms it devalues digital media. It’s a big business, not a cottage industry, and it’s harming consumers, content providers and marketers. Just today the Digital Citizens Alliance published a report on work my MediaLink colleagues and I conducted over the last few months on content theft: “Good Money Gone Bad: Digital Thieves and the Hijacking of the Online Ad Business.”

DW: You led Yahoo! sales during a very good time. Can the portals of that era – Yahoo!, Aol and MSN – play a critical role in an era dominated by Google, Facebook and Amazon?

WHM: I believe they can if they focus on primarily on two things: best-in-class utility offerings and high quality content. Their roles will be different, but I wouldn’t rule out a comeback for these companies despite how much the competitive landscape has changed.

DW: Tell us three simple qualities that define a great leader in today’s digital landscape.

WHM: Be curious about everything. Look outward, not inward. Never underestimate the consumer or your customer.

DW: Is there a red herring in our world? What are we spending far too much time talking about?

WHM: Big data…Enough! Of course data is critical to almost every aspect of digital media and marketing. But it’s not the data in and of itself that we should focus on. It’s the derivative of that data – the insights – that matter. Consumer behavioral insights are what marketers want more than anything else. Those insights are what should matter most to publishers, agencies, marketers and all the other players across the landscape.

DW: It’s clear that talent continues to be a major issue for our business. What other industries or backgrounds should we be looking to raid? We can’t keep going after the same 300 veteran media sellers, can we?

WHM: As an industry we certainly need to bring in the data scientists, the statistics PhD’s, the mathematicians. We need engineers and product development people who want to build solutions for problems that actually exist – not the self-indulgent ones we’ve spent too much on already. But looking to other industries for transferrable talent has not historically been part of our media and marketing world. No, we cannot keep going after the same veteran media sellers; the skill sets we need today are very different than just ten years ago. The combination of technical proficiency and the ability to read and connect with an audience and tell a great story – well, that’s a highly unusual individual. But we live in a world of “and” now, not a world of “or.”

DW: Investors have their own way of determining value. But what creates lasting value for a company in the digital landscape? What will define the companies that are still valuable and vital in 10 or 20 years?

WHM: Four things: First, talent is everything so hire the very best and constantly trade up. Second, culture will define your success, so pay attention to what you nurture and celebrate. Third, being comfortable is dangerous, so constantly challenge everything. And finally, navel-gazing and looking in the mirror for answers is death. You don’t have the answers; your customers, employees and others do. Get over yourself!

There are a small handful of seats remaining for The Seller Forum. If you’re a qualified CRO, EVP, SVP or VP of sales and would like to attend, contact us today.

5 comments

Agreed, we can’t keep repurposing the same 300 industry “veterans”, which then poses a different question: in an industry that seemingly is a weekly, monthly, hourly education in itself what realm of business gets anyone ready to work in this one?

Applause! I so agree with Wenda.
Everyone wants better measurement and better proof of performance but if we ask marketers what they are truly desperate for more of ….it would not be more data…. it would be deeper insights and bigger ideas that move their brands and drive their business. We need to remember the real value of raw information.

There are too many great insights here to try to sort them all out. Wenda never disappoints!

For readers of The Drift who sit at the tops of their companies, I think her final insight is most important…

“navel-gazing and looking in the mirror for answers is death. You don’t have the answers; your customers, employees and others do. Get over yourself!”

Born digital media companies, especially those born in the Silicon Valley, tend to develop a bunker mentality when things are going wrong. These are good people – super bright, game changers who trust each other. They just tend to turn inward at exactly the moment when they should be doing the opposite. It is the right way to work when you are trying to write 10 million lines of code and not screw anything up but it is the wrong way to grow a business that is ultimately dependent on consumers and advertisers for its financial success.

I’m struck by the comment of “AND” versus “OR”. DW, we may even have discussed this recently, but today’s data, technology and audience-driven Brave New World is one of options and choices — “AND” decisions, not “OR” decisions. A world of ever-increasing co-opetition. Many veteran buyers still ask, “Do I contract with your technology/property/service OR the other guys’? The answer is inevitably, “BOTH”. Or more likely, “ALL”. It’s precisely the abundance of options that provide scale for a buyer. This is a not-so-subtle change from only a few years ago when decisions re: portal, ad-serving, eCRM, etc., were typically far more mutually exclusive “OR” decisions.